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Books two through four of the Temperance Brennan series (I couldn't find the first book at my usual source, and though I’m generally fastidious about these things, it didn’t seem to matter this time). Said Temperance Brennan is a forensic anthropologist who divides her time between teaching in North Carolina and solving crimes via examination of skeletal remains in Quebec. Death Du Jour is about identifying the remains after a devastating house fire, Deadly Decisions has something or other to do with bikers, and Fatal Voyage features the discovery of unaccounted remains at the site of a fatal plane crash.
Meh. I am once again taken in by the mistaken belief that surely books this popular and well discussed must have something to them, right? People do have a modicum of taste and literary judgment, yes?
Apparently, people have a taste for plots which are entirely held together by a soupy glue of wild coincidence and random chance. A lot of criminal activities and organizations have specific ties to both Charlotte and Quebec, you know. Oh, and it is very common for the various family members and loved ones of an investigator to randomly go wandering into the line of fire in a case. Happens to me all the time. People also apparently like cardboard angst and a wooden romance – the entire scene preceding the first hook-up of our main couple is summarized in a paragraph, with such deathless prose as, “and Ryan disclosed his feelings about [fill in random life event of note].” Oi.
In comparison to the painfully abbreviated attempts at character and the flailings of the plot, Reichs devotes swaths of the text to explanations of things like spatter pattern analysis in physical assaults. Which I personally find fascinating, but all things told I’d take a textbook over this any day. Far less irritating.
Some of my wrath is disappointment – I’m fond of Bones, the spin-off TV show. It also features Temperance Brennan, forensic anthropologist, but her location, friends, coworkers, and story are entirely different. The dialogue is snappy, the secondary characters charming, the potential relationship actually touching, oh and David Boreanaz is a goofy but talented FBI agent. Good times all around.
Meh. I am once again taken in by the mistaken belief that surely books this popular and well discussed must have something to them, right? People do have a modicum of taste and literary judgment, yes?
Apparently, people have a taste for plots which are entirely held together by a soupy glue of wild coincidence and random chance. A lot of criminal activities and organizations have specific ties to both Charlotte and Quebec, you know. Oh, and it is very common for the various family members and loved ones of an investigator to randomly go wandering into the line of fire in a case. Happens to me all the time. People also apparently like cardboard angst and a wooden romance – the entire scene preceding the first hook-up of our main couple is summarized in a paragraph, with such deathless prose as, “and Ryan disclosed his feelings about [fill in random life event of note].” Oi.
In comparison to the painfully abbreviated attempts at character and the flailings of the plot, Reichs devotes swaths of the text to explanations of things like spatter pattern analysis in physical assaults. Which I personally find fascinating, but all things told I’d take a textbook over this any day. Far less irritating.
Some of my wrath is disappointment – I’m fond of Bones, the spin-off TV show. It also features Temperance Brennan, forensic anthropologist, but her location, friends, coworkers, and story are entirely different. The dialogue is snappy, the secondary characters charming, the potential relationship actually touching, oh and David Boreanaz is a goofy but talented FBI agent. Good times all around.
